Radio Gaga

I thought when I wrote the previous post that I'd given up on any further work for today, however it didn't quite work out that way.

One of the things I'd decided on straight away was to replace the radio in Little Dai. I wasn't too keen on the one installed when I bought it and I fancied going for a DAB one as I tend to listen to Smooth Radio these days. Having a DAB car radio saves carrying a separate one for camping.

I'd found a Philips radio on special offer with money off and the DAB adapter thrown in. An added bonus is that not only does it have front and rear USB ports it takes an SD card as well. There's no CD player but I can't remember when I last put a CD in the car. I also picked up an active windscreen film aerial. Reviews on these are a bit mixed but I felt it worth a try.

Having tried, and failed, to get the radio out yesterday the first thing today was to head to Halfords for the correct Sony removal tools. That proved to be a total waste of time and money! At that point I decided to give up, particularly as it was raining.

After lunch I decide to give it one further go. It turned out that instead of being mounted in a cage as normal the radio is bolted in on two brackets which also hold a dashboard storage bin. The only way to get it out (and the new one is) was to remove the front of the dash, although this proved quite easy. Once that was done I could get everything unbolted. I had to modify the brackets slightly to get them to fit on the new radio but at least having the dash out made routing the aerial lead relatively easy.

A quick test before putting it all back together proved successful, with a decent DAB signal. I had some further modifying to do on the bezel and it may need a dab of glue just to hold it in place but overall I'm very happy with the job. Later on I'll sort out an SD card (I have plenty) and get it programmed up with all the required music.

In the mean time I did also source some cheap floor mats from Wilkinson which I've cut down for the back to protect the carpets and make it easier to keep clean. I will get some proper fitted floor mats for the front though.